Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Father

SWIFT, Lce. Serjt. John Alexander, 3899. 52nd Bn. Australian Inf. Killed in action 3rd/4th Sept., 1916. Age 45. Son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Swift; husband of Sarah D. C. Swift, of 87, Prince's St., Sandy Bay, Tasmania. Born at Bellerive, Tasmania. Serre Road Cemetery No 1 Beaumont-Hamel VIII. F. 26.

1242 Private Thomas William West Swift, 12th Battalion, a 22 year old from Sandy Bay, Tasmania was also killed in action at the landing on Anzac Cove, 25th April 1915. He was the son of John Alexander Swift and Sarah Swift, of Hobart. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli, Turkey.

            In Swift’s Red Cross file Private E.A. Hall of the 12th Battalion said that Swift was seen dead in his dugout by his friends on the 26th April. A shrapnel bullet had entered his head through his mouth.

Thomas’s father, 3899 Lance Sergeant John Alexander Swift, who had enlisted at the age of 45, in the 52nd Battalion, had also written to the Red Cross in February 1916, while he was in Egypt, and stated that a Rupert Banks, a mate of Thomas’s, had seen him shot in the head during the second day of the Landing, and that he had lived for about half an hour. The father, John Swift, also said in his letter that he was quite satisfied that nothing more could be found out about his son.

            John Swift held a long service medal for at least 25 years service in the Tasmanian Volunteer Engineers Corp and he enlisted in August, 1915. By September 1916, he was serving with the 52nd Battalion during the last of the AIF’s attacks on Mouquet Farm in France. In Beans history of the AIF, describing the 52nd Battalion’s attack, “At this stage a sergeant of the 52nd named Swift, whose son had been killed at the Landing, crept out between the trench and the wire with a rifle, and presently reported that he had shot the machine gunner who had barred that flank.”

John Swift was stated by Bean to have been killed the next day during the last battle at Mouquet Farm, his death officially recorded as sometime between the 3rd and the 7th September, 1916. John Swift has a grave in the Serre Road Cemetery No 1 Beaumont-Hamel, France. His identity disc was recovered and returned to his wife in 1923.

Another son, 3905 Corporal John Henry West Swift enlisted with his father during August 1915 and also transferred to the 52nd Battalion in France. He was returned to Australia for family reasons during April 1918.

Another son, Leslie Ramsay West Swift first enlisted in August 1916, aged 19, but was discharged at his own request because of “family hardship”, in December 1916. He would have just learned of his father’s death. However, he enlisted again in August 1917 and left for overseas in May 1918, and although he almost died from influenza in England, he did not get sent to France, and returned home safely.  A fourth and younger son, Hector Mcgregor Swift, served in the RAAF during the Second World War.

Both the deceased Swift father and son are commemorated on the Soldiers Memorial Walk in Hobart, Tasmania.